Alaska-Sitka 8/10/18

Disembarked after breakfast and caught the shuttle into town, about a ten-minute ride.  There was free WiFi at the Visitor’s Centre and at the adjacent Library.  The latter was recommended as being faster, so we walked over and took up a small table in the reading room.

View from the delightful library at Sitka

The library is magnificent for a town of only a few thousand.  Recently refurbished, it boasted a good selection of books, DVDs and periodicals.  Given the high cost of subscriptions and shipping up here, it is no doubt a boon to Sitka citizens.  It also boasts large picture windows with lovely views of the bay and mountains.

After checking email, etc., we boarded our bus at the nearby Visitor’s Centre for the day’s tour.  First stop, the sylvan raptor center where we were charmed by 20 Bald Eagles in various stages of rehabilitation from injuries.  They were housed in an enclosure that was large enough for them to get back to flying while still exposed to the elements and as natural as possible.  Human contact was minimized to avoid imprinting.  When recovered, they are tagged and released into the wild.  That was followed by a lecture accompanied by the center’s ambassador eagle Tesla.  Tesla is blind in one eye and has suffered some neurological damage which hampers his flying ability enough to render him ineligible for release.  Instead, he and his handler travel to schools and teach people about raptors and their important role in Nature.  Other raptors were also present, in outdoor enclosures among the towering Sitka Spruces.  A salmon stream ran through the woods below, but a sign warned that this was Brown Bear habitat, so we skipped a closer inspection.

Flight rehab center 

Then we visited a bear sanctuary where several Alaskan Brown bears and some Black bears were recovering from injuries and some orphaned cubs were being raised before being returned to the wild.  The bears looked healthy and were kept in large, natural-seeming enclosures with running water and lots of food, but I always hate seeing wild animals in pens, no matter how large.

Alaskan Brown Bear, Sitka Bear Haven

That was followed by a visit to a Salmon hatchery and research centre.  Our guide, a young lady who worked with her father on his fishing boat, also guided tours around the hatchery and was off to University  in the Fall to study Marine Biology.  She was of course very knowledgeable and enthusiastic.   The hatchery harvests Salmon eggs, raises the hatchlings until they are large enough to be released in the ocean, then turns them loose.  Each year, the salmon that have survived the five years since their release, return to the hatchery seeking the stream that they were hatched in.  After running the gauntlet of fishing boats waiting offshore, some 2% make it through and have their eggs harvested and fertilized, to begin the cycle anew.   Seemed cruel to me to trick them this way, on the other hand, fishing is a crucial part of the local economy and if we don’t replace the stock we consume, there will eventually be no more fish.

Bald Eagle recovering at the rehab center

Back to the ship for a lovely supper and the evening’s entertainment in the Main Theatre.

Leaving Sitka

Alaska Hubbard Glacier 9-8-18

From Kodiak, we sailed south to the Hubbard Glacier.  We approached with caution, avoiding the larger chunks of ice in the inlet to within 200 meters of the ice face. 

Approaching the glacier

Small chunk calving off

Bluest ice is the oldest.  All the gases have been compressed out.

The silence of the fjord was occasionally shattered by thunderous groans and cracks as the glacier shifted and periodically calved small bergs.  A monumental river of ice, the Hubbard has been in accelerated retreat for several years.  The rounded, recently exposed rock of the fjord sides was a raw, fresh colour compared to the part nearer the sea.

The experience was wet, cold, overcast, awe-inspiring and slightly depressing as we witnessed the incontrovertible proof of Global Warming.

Alaska-Kodiak 8/8/18

Docked early at tiny Kodiak.  Once again we were greeted by beautiful, albeit cold and windy sunshine.  A fishing town on the famous Kodiak Island (home to 3,000 Kodiak bears and 7,000 people) the town has little to offer Cruise ship visitors.  Unless you’re desperate to see more bears, whales or eagles, you can safely give it a miss.

We did visit a small, interesting Native Museum which contained some local artefacts including a beautiful bride’s headdress and a Kayak skeleton clearly showing the clever engineering that went into the boat design.

Bridal headdress, Kodiak 

Nearby was a pretty Russian Orthodox Church, left over from when this was Russian territory.

Set sail after lunch for Sitka.

Alaska–Homer 7/8/18

Arrived at Homer 8-ish.  Homer enjoys a well-moderated Maritime Climate, with average summer highs in the upper 50s and average winter highs in the lower 30s. The harbour is on a spit of land which is the remains of a Glacial Moraine, and only a short distance from the small town of 3,000.  We opted for the Homer Town and Country Tour, boarded a school bus in bright, sunny weather on the spit and were whisked off to our first stop; the Pratt Museum.

Bald Eagle, Homer Harbour

Near Homer

Houses on the Spit

Homer harbour

The Pratt (celebrating its 50^th anniversary) portrays the history of the region, from early settlements, through the Aleutian participation in WWII, the 1964 earthquake to modern times.   Particular emphasis is placed on the fishery.

Then off to the Norman Lowell Gallery outside of town to view the works of more famous local artists.  Lowell himself is in his 90s, so cynics advised buying something as an investment.  We passed.  His oils seemed to run about $1,000/square foot.

Back to town for an interesting visit to the Islands and Oceans Visitor’s Center to learn about Marine conservation efforts in the region, before returning to the ship.

Alaska Anchorage 6/8/18

Arrived early at the shallow harbour of Anchorage.  With a population of 350,000 or over 40% of Alaska’s population, Anchorage is the main port of entry for cargo.  We discovered it has a tide of over 25 feet, necessitating the change of our disembarkation ramp from Deck 3 to Deck 2 as the tide rolled in.

We had a free morning so we caught a shuttle over the Ship Creek where hundreds of anglers fished for Silver Salmon, to the downtown Egan Center where free WiFI is available.  We caught up with our email and on-line banking then returned to the ship for lunch.  After lunch it was off on a city tour, followed by a visit to the Aviation Museum.  The museum was full of lovingly restored vintage aircraft from the Golden Age of aviation and tales of heroic derring-do.  Small planes are still a primary mode of transportation here and 25% of all small planes in the USA are based here.  Anchorage also boasts the largest floatplane airport in the country.

Fireweed, first to bloom after a forest fire, it opens from the bottom up.  When the top flower opens, Winter is coming.

Reggie checking WiFi at Visitor's Center

Downtown park in full bloom

Leaving Anchorage

Back to the ship for supper and to watch a dredge chug up and down the inlet beside the ship, to clear away any sand that may have been sucked into the channel by the tidal rip and ensure that the ship could make a clean getaway at this evening’s high tide.

Now off to the theatre for the evening’s entertainment.

Alaska Icy Point 4/8/18

Landed at Icy Point this morning, population 400.  The port consists of a tiny huddle of native shops, a spindly pier sticking out into the sea and a tram ride into the woods.  There’s also Zip-lining.

We took the tram ride.  The 100-foot tall Western Hemlock and Sitka Spruce forest is second-growth, replanted after the loggers cleared the island in the early 1900s.  With 200 inches of rain a year, greenery is not lacking.  Anything not moving is covered in moss.

Salmon and crab are the main sources of income, now with the welcome addition of cruise-ship tourists.

Zaandam at Icy Point

Deer checking out noisy visitors

Fishing boat hauled-out for repairs

Old Man's Beard moss hanging from trees

Icy point tourist village

On our ride, we encountered Black-tailed deer and Bald Eagles, as well as a plethora of plants used by the natives for food or medicinal purposes.

Returned to the ship for lunch, clutching a jar of native balm made from Devil’s Club to rub on Reggie’s aching muscles.

At least it wasn’t raining.

Juneau 3/8/18

Sailed overnight through fog shrouded channels to Juneau, the capital of Alaska, population 33,000.

Tracked down some Ben Gay for Reg’s sore leg, then loaded onto a minibus for a 20-minute ride to Alan Marine on Auke Bay.  There we embarked on a catamaran for the Whale-watching Cruise.  We set off through Saginaw Channel towards Hump Island and Lincoln Island where we encountered our first Humpback Whales.  Fifty feet long and weighing up to 35 tons, these behemoths are surprisingly elusive.  Their presence is betrayed by a plume of exhaled breath and water when they surface.  They can then surface again a few times at short intervals, finally taking a deep breath and sounding for up to 25 minutes to feed.  All one has to do is spot the plume in a 360 arc of ocean, raise one’s camera, frame the beast, zoom in, focus and press the shutter release.  As you can imagine, the whale is gone by then.  That’s why you see so many pictures of whale tails.  Kudos to the nature photographers whose endless patience and persistence captures the whale’s beauty for the rest of us to appreciate.

Pressing on, we spotted colonies of sea lions beached on Lincoln Island.  The reason became obvious when we were suddenly surrounded by two pods of Killer Whales or Orcas (Latin for Sea Wolf).  Our naturalist commentator was emitting girlish screams of excitement as the Orcas broached all around us in ones and twos, even approaching our boat and swimming alongside like dolphins do several passed under the boat, clearly playing with us as we excitedly charged from one side of the boat to the other.   This went on for 10-15 minutes before they lost interest and sped off at 35 knots to resume their 100-mile-per-day perambulations.

Orcas!

Steller Sea Lions hiding from the Orcas

We carried on to our turning point at Little Island where a large herd of Sea Lions was wisely staying out of the water until the orcas were gone.  Homeward bound, we saw a few more Humpbacks before docking and returning to our ship.